Pakistan loves the word merit. It appears in speeches, university admissions, job advertisements, scholarship announcements and competitive exams. It sounds clean and fair. It tells us that those who rise have earned their place, while those who do not must simply work harder.

But merit is never born in the examination hall. It is shaped long before the exam begins.

A child who grows up with books, internet access, electricity, private tuition, educated parents and English-speaking confidence enters a competition with invisible support. Another child enters the same competition after studying in overcrowded classrooms, sharing textbooks, travelling long distances, managing household work or learning from teachers who are themselves under-resourced. Later, both are judged by the same test and told that the result is neutral.

This is not fairness. It is inequality wearing the language of fairness.

Pakistan’s education crisis makes this clear. The Pakistan Institute of Education’s Pakistan Education Statistics 2022–23 reported over 26 million out-of-school children aged five to 16. The World Bank’s Pakistan Learning Poverty Brief estimated that 77 per cent of children of late primary age........

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